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Mr. Tokida’s Lament: extended, part five (finale)

Tokida dashes out of the building and into the early dusk. He sits down on the cold steps, the wet steps, at the front of the mortuary. He doesn’t notice how cold or wet the step is. He has his phone out. He’s dialing her number. It rings.

And rings.

Beeping.

Tokida can feel the cold air, not the cold step.

Beeping.

He’s here, propped up again, momentarily suspended in ballistic gel, from the shadow unreality of the beeping phone emerges a solid plane, and he can stand on it, dance on it, and she supports him. Oh! How could he have been so stupid? Does a person’s phone ring and ring? On and on, like this.

“Hello-” came her voice and Tokida weeps, instantly he is sobbing, then, “this is Lou. I can’t get to the phone right now, please -”

“Hello, this is Lou, I can’t get to the phone right now, please could ya call me back? Whenever you want…just not now,” she laughs, “obviously.”

Why was she driving in school hours? She wasn’t. She was in class, with Frost, with Hemingway, she was in class, not in her car, on the road, on the road. Now she’s at home, in the bath, so she can’t pick up, even though she’s wondering where he was.

Oh, what a fool I’ve been, Tokida chastises himself, what a fool.

Tokida wobbles on the step because the world feels like its come to a stop.

At rest.

Restored.

All three arms. All the right angles. He brushes himself off and stands up. His trousers are wet. He notices now because everything is normal again. What a fool, he thinks.

Lou’ll never believe this, Tokida thinks. What will Mrs. Burrows say when she hears about this?

Tokida laughs out loud in the cold dusk. He heads towards the gates of the mortuary.

The boy calls out his name.

From the steps.

The boy calls out his name.

“Sir, Philip Tokida, sir?” the boy comes down the steps. “I was hoping to catch you before you left.”

“It’s alright,” Tokida smiles, grins, “I’ve made a bit of a mistake.”

“Oh? You – you have?”

“Yes, thanks ever so much for your time, and coming out here to speak to me, it’s awful cold out, tonight, isn’t it?”

Tokida turns to leave.

“Only…was it, was it…” the boy looks at a card he has in his right hand, “was it Lou Tokida you were looking for?”

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Tokida turned out to be quite a character. I’m sorry for the twists and turns there towards the end. I couldn’t resist a bit of narrative teasing. It doesn’t work out for poor Mr. Tokida. Not this time.

Stay peeled for more stories in the future. These prompts can start off all kind of reactions in my head. I’m sure there’ll be more Tokidas to come.

10 thoughts on “Mr. Tokida’s Lament: extended, part five (finale)”

Thanks so much. I was hoping to get people on-board. I’m glad I could pull it off, and that you enjoyed it. I’ll get writing again next week and see if I can come up with another character that interests you.

I’m still not sure if Tokida deserved it – but who does? I was toying with the idea of letting him get away cleanly, but felt like that might not be true to life.

And that’s a brilliant question. This whole thing spun wildly from a simple, original prompt. Hopefully, as long as I keep writing, something else will spill out. Keep your eyes peeled, there’ll be something, no doubt!

Keep writing! I enjoy reading it so much. I would not put effort into commenting if I didn’t. I try to give actual feedback too. I mean I do give short comments, but I try to point out things I specifically liked so you understand at least one readers view of your work. I hope it helps to know where you are hitting the mark. And I also thank you for your lovely encouragement.

I was so close to ending it happily. So very close. Yes. It was just administrative error. Go home and laugh about it. But life isn’t like that. Sometimes it is, but I was in a solemn mood, and so Mr. Tokida felt the brunt of it.

Hope you’ll be back for more, and that you enjoyed the story overall! Thanks for your support 🙂